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Tuesday, 25 November 2014

The Train Set Runs!

I promised a picture of the board in the folded-away position, so here it is!

The protrusion into the room is quite small - around 12", and doesn't block the window. There's space for some storage underneath too, though admittedly it isn't pretty! The black strips you can see are foam pipe lagging, to soften the blow when crawling under the layout and coming up too soon!

This is a close-up of the rear leg and the frame that holds it off the wall, the pivot bolt can be seen. Above it the front leg hangs, and in this picture the safety catch is not in use!

So base-board done there was pressure to lay some track! First the board was painted grey (with emulsion tester pots) where the track was to go, realistically ballasting isn't going to be high on the priority list but a grey base looks better than plywood. The end curves are 2nd and 3rd radius set-track and the points to the inner "loop" line are Hornby set-track, but the crossover and the branch to the upper level use Peco Streamline, and the straights are flexi-track.

There's no 3rd radius set-track point (a major omission I think), so I used a 2' radius streamline point which is a little larger in radius but flows well. The transition between point and straight, and the inner track at this location, were laid in flexi-track to match. Laying flexi-track and streamline points takes more work - trimming sleepers and carefully lining up the rails - but the result looks better and runs well too.

Much of the track came from my train-set around the loft of my parents house, it has since spent many years in their shed too, so was well tarnished, nothing would run on it. Some vigorous cleaning with a track rubber and fibreglass pencil brought back the shine and (more importantly) the electrical conductivity.

That last photo also shows the Gaugemaster double-controller set under the upper level. I wired one control to the inner track and the other to the outer track, and so we (just) had trains running by half-term!

Welcome to my Blog

If you are interested in model railways, particularly in narrow gauge, or small (micro) layouts, then I hope you will find this site interesting. I try to update it periodically with news of my current models and layouts, and anything else model-railway related (and sometimes not!). I usually model in 009 scale (1:76 or 4mm/ft using 9mm gauge track), although I have recently dabbled in 014 (1:43 or 7mm/ft on 14mm gauge track) as well. For more on my current and past layouts click the the links to the pages below. If you have any comments or feedback, do let me know!

About Me

I have been building model railways since I was a teenager, mostly in 009 scale though I have also worked in 00, and more recently 014.
I am a member of the 009 society (which is highly reccommended if you model in 009 or similar) and of the local area group of the society in Sussex, the Sussex Downs group.
Away from model railways, I am a chartered engineer working in the automotive industry, I am married with two small children to occupy most of my free time, and I am involved in the PA and technical things at my church. So I don't get a lot of time for model railway building!